QU Baseball to Conclude Home Stand with Weekend MAAC Series vs. Niagara

Quinnipiac (20-24, 11-4 MAAC)
vs. Niagara (17-22, 7-8 MAAC)

Day + Time
Saturday: doubleheader — 12 p.m. and 3 p.m.
Sunday — 12 p.m.

Location
QU Baseball Field — Hamden, Conn.

Live Stats — QuinnipiacBobcats.com
Quinnipiac Baseball on Twitter — @TheQBaseball

HAMDEN, Conn. — The first-place Quinnipiac Bobcats will host the Niagara Purple Eagles for a three-game weekend MAAC series on Saturday (doubleheader, 12 p.m. and 3 p.m.) and Sunday (12 p.m.) at the QU Baseball Field.

Quinnipiac (11-4 MAAC) has been in first place since the first weekend of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference season. Canisius (12-6) and Marist (10-5) are tied for second — both are at .667 in winning percentage — while Niagara (7-8) is in seventh place in the 11-team MAAC. Only the top six teams make the conference playoffs, which are played in a double-elimination format.

This weekend's series will conclude a nine-game home stand for the Bobcats. After this weekend, Quinnipiac has six games left in the regular season, all in the conference and all on the road.

Until this past weekend, when the Bobcats dropped two of three to Iona, they had won four straight MAAC series to start the season.

LAST TIME OUT: CENTRAL CONNECTICUT 9, QUINNIPIAC 6
The Central Connecticut Blue Devils defeated the Bobcats 9-6 in a nonconference game Wednesday at the QU Baseball Field. The loss was the fourth straight for the Bobcats after they had reached .500 on Saturday with a 2-1 victory over Iona in the first game of a doubleheader.

Central hit four home runs and Quinnipiac hit one, by senior Ben Gibson. His 12 homers lead the MAAC, and two of his teammates are in second and third: Liam Scafariello (9) and sophomore Evan Vulgamore (8, tied for third-most).

Central leadoff hitter Dean Lockery got his offense on the board right away via a solo home run. Quinnipiac leadoff hitter Andre Marrero replied by getting the Bobcats going with a triple to right center, but it went for naught — the sophomore was stranded at third. So Central led 1-0 after one inning.

In the top of the second, Central scored four more runs on a three-run homer followed by a solo homer, and in the bottom of the frame Quinnipiac got one run back to make it 5-1 Central.

The Bobcats crept to within 5-3 in the bottom of the third inning when Gibson crushed a no-doubt, two-run homer.

In the bottom of the fourth, the Bobcats almost drew even. Junior Kevin Huscher singled down the left-field line with two outs, bringing up Marrero, who drove a ball to deep center field that appeared to be hit well enough to be a two-run homer ... but instead was caught right in front of the wall.

In the top of the fifth inning, the Blue Devils added two runs, and QU scored once in the bottom of the sixth to cut the deficit to 7-4. Quinnipiac scored two runs in the bottom of the seventh to reduce Central's advantage to one run, but Central scored one run apiece in the eighth and ninth to go ahead 9-6, and that was the ballgame.

MAAC STATS UPDATE: GIBSON STILL TOPS HR LIST

Note: The following individual stats are for all games through this past Sunday, not just conference games. Source: MAAC website.

Hitters
In home runs, Quinnipiac senior Ben Gibson (12) leads the MAAC and junior Liam Scafariello (9) is second, while sophomore Evan Vulgamore (8) is tied for third-most. Gibson is fifth in slugging percentage at .558.

In stolen bases, junior Brian Moskey and sophomore Andre Marrero (10 apiece) are tied for third-most in the MAAC, while Scafariello and Vulgamore are tied for fifth-most (8 apiece). Senior Anthony Cruz is tied for sixth-most (7).

In doubles, Marrero (14) is tied for third-most while Scafariello (12) is tied for fifth-most. On the Bobcats' roster, Moskey and sophomore Dylan Lutz are tied for the best batting average (.317).

In hits, Moskey (53) has the fifth-most in the conference. In walks, Scafariello (27) is tied for fourth-most and Marrero (25) has the sixth-most. In RBI, Gibson (36) is tied for sixth-most, while Scafariello (35) has the seventh-most.

Pitchers
In wins, Quinnipiac senior pitcher Taylor Luciani (7-2) is tied for first in the MAAC and graduate student Brandon Shileikis (5-4) is tied for third-most.

In strikeouts, junior Tyler Poulin (65) is second in the league while Shileikis (55) has the sixth-most and Luciani (50) is tied for seventh-most.

In ERA, sophomore reliever Colin Donnelly (1.72) is sixth in the league among pitchers with at least 10 innings. Among pitchers with at least 20 innings, freshman Arthur Correira (2.52) is 11th in the league.

Team
In conference games only, Quinnipiac hitters lead the MAAC in home runs, slugging percentage and stolen bases (tied for first). Quinnipiac pitchers are first in runs allowed and hits allowed and tied for first in shutouts, and second in ERA and batting average against.

QU is in first place in the MAAC standings with an 11-4 record.

Against Saint Peter's on Saturday, March 31, Quinnipiac set a new Division I program record for most runs scored in a single game (28). The team's old record of 24 runs was set against Wagner College during the 2003 season. The last time the Bobcats scored at least 20 runs in a game was in 2007, when they scored exactly 20 against LIU Brooklyn.

BOBCATS NO. 5 IN NEIBA POLL
Quinnipiac is No. 5 in this week's New England Intercollegiate Baseball Association Coaches Poll. This week's rankings:

1 – UConn
2 – Northeastern
3 – Bryant
4 – Yale
5 – Quinnipiac

This week's NEIBA poll is the sixth of the season. QU was No. 4 the previous three weeks.

Quinnipiac was ranked fifth in the season's first poll, announced on Monday, March 26. It was the first time the Bobcats had cracked the poll since 2015 and only the second time in the last decade. In the second NEIBA poll on April 2, the Bobcats dropped from the top five but received votes.

The poll is conducted by New England college baseball coaches in Division I; the top five teams are ranked. There are also NEIBA polls for Divisions II and III.

HOME SWEET HOME
After playing 26 straight road games over two months to start the season, Quinnipiac finally hosted a visitor at the QU Baseball Field in the weekend series against Monmouth on April 7-8. The Bobcats' three-game series sweep was the first time they swept the Hawks. The long road exodus had sent the Bobcats to such destinations as Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Long Island and New Jersey.

In the doubleheader with Monmouth on April 8, Quinnipiac was propelled to victory by the clutch hitting of junior Liam Scafariello and senior Ben Gibson, who tag-teamed for some walk-off magic. Each player had the game-winning hit in Quinnipiac's last at-bat, and the final score of each game was 4-3.

MAAC PRESEASON POLL
Quinnipiac was picked to finish eighth in the MAAC Preseason Coaches' Poll. The Bobcats were placed between Siena and Rider. Marist was slated to finish first, garnering seven first-place votes, with Canisius, Fairfield and Niagara rounding out the top four.

HEAD COACH JOHN DELANEY
Head Coach John Delaney is in his fourth season at the helm with Quinnipiac baseball. He has amassed 88 wins in his three-plus years as head coach, including 29 wins in 2015, which tied the program record for most victories in a single season. The Bobcats went 29-27 (15-9 MAAC) overall that year, finishing third in the conference — their highest regular season conference finish since winning the regular season Northeast Conference title in 2007, when Delaney played for the team.

NEXT UP
After the Bobcats' three-game weekend MAAC series versus Niagara, they will travel to Marist for another three-game conference series on Saturday, May 12 (doubleheader, 12 p.m. and 3 p.m.) and Sunday, May 13 (12 p.m.) in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

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QU Baseball to Conclude Home Stand with Weekend MAAC Series vs. Niagara

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